


Sepia IV

by theswearingkind



Category: Brokeback Mountain
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 21:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theswearingkind/pseuds/theswearingkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Them being together doesn't mean it's always good.  </p>
<p>Snapshots of what could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sepia IV

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourth story in a series, Sepia, that examines the life Jack and Ennis could have had if they'd come down off the mountain together.  It's very non-linear, and there's no real plot.  
> 
> Originally posted to brokebackslash in 2006.

When they moved in, Ennis insisted on two beds, one for each spare room.Jack protested—who’s gonna know out here?—but Ennis dug his heels in.“Gotta keep up appearances, Jack,” he’d said, voice brooking no refusal.“How’d it look if somebody came by, just one bed?”

 

“Who you plannin’ on showin’ the bedroom, Ennis?” Jack had asked, grin on his face not matching the steel in his voice.He’d been pissed, and no mistake—how it always was with Ennis, one step forward, two long fuckin’ leaps back.“Don’t make no sense, friend.We c’n barely afford to get the horses, now you wantin’ separate beds, too?”

 

“Don’t gotta be nothin’ fancy, Jack, just somethin’ there,” Ennis said mulishly.“Mattress, coupla blankets s’all.”

 

Jack never had been much good at picking his battles, but he backed off from this one, and was glad of it many a night.Like tonight, for instance.

 

He can feel the weight of those coal-dark eyes on him as he shovels dinner in his mouth, determinedly avoiding meeting Ennis’s gaze.Goddamn it, this is not his fucking fault.He’s not the one who spent the whole time they were in town flirting like some damn schoolboy with that check-out girl at the store, so it’s not his fault that they got home without half the supplies they needed, and he has every goddamn right to be pissed as shit right now.

 

“You alright?” Ennis asks warily, oblivious to the cause but looking pretty sure of what would be the effect—just him, his hand, and one long fucking night ahead.

 

_ Fuckin’ asshole _ , Jack thinks.“’M fine.”

 

“You sure?”

 

“I’m right as fuckin’ rain, Ennis.But I sure would be a whole hell of a lot better if we were eatin’ somethin’ other than _beans_.”

 

“Jesus, Jack, you still on about that?Told you I’d go back t’morrow an’ get what we forgot.”

 

Jack cuts him a look.“What _you_ forgot, Ennis.I didn’t forget nothin’.”

 

“For fuck’s sake, Jack—”

 

“Ain’t like we c’n afford to be wastin’ the gas, friend.We barely makin’ it as things are.”

 

“So you want me to not go t’morrow?Us live off beans and beer for the next coupla months?Ain’t gonna trouble me none.Hell, Jack, I’m not the one who complains if the meal ain’t some goddamn fancy shit—”

 

“Yeah, well I’m not the one who forgets to buy his half of the supplies ‘cause he’s too damn busy pantin’ like some bitch in heat at some goddamn _girl_ —”

 

“Jesus Christ, Jack, it weren’t—you want people to start gettin’ the wrong idea ‘bout us?”

 

“Seems to me they’d be gettin’ the _right_ idea, Ennis,” Jack snarls, eyes flaring blue and electric as carnival lights, the way they always got when he was itching for a fight.“’M goin’ to bed.”

 

“Aw, Jack, come on now.”

 

“Fuck you, Ennis.”He stalks down the hall to their bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him, the echo of _stay the fuck away from me_ louder than if he’d shouted the words.


End file.
